Category: Business Day One

[Business Day One] The Last Cassel

1 Comment

Matt Cassel won’t be a Patriot next season. I just had to come right out and say it before the season grew any nearer to completion and the question would come up. Matt Cassel will be franchised, then traded for draft picks that will help New England in the years to come. As such, let me just say now that we should thank Cassel for the work he has done to salvage the season, and the work he will do in the future to strengthen the team in other positions of need like linebacker and defensive tackle.

This situation, which will unfold before the 2009 draft, is a testament to how good Tom Brady is. Cassel, who has been improving week over week, is now playing with the poise and confidence of a true team leader. And next year, he’s going to be compensated like one and will be a starter. It just won’t be in Foxboro. So enjoy him while you can, America, because next year he’ll be in Detroit or Tampa. I shall henceforth call the 2008 Patriots Season the Last Cassel.

Business Day One, Football , , ,

[Business Day One] Where, Oh Where, Michael Vick

No Comments

My girlfriend is a Patriots fan, but her knowledge of the NFL in general isn’t terribly thorough (and by that, I mean that she knows who Peyton Manning is and that’s pretty much it). So when she struck up conversation on Michael Vick and whether or not he’d come back into the league, I was just a touch surprised. It goes to show you the kind of notoriety you can get from being a monster. Anyway, she wanted my opinion on what Vick’s options were once his 23 month prison sentence was over (which will be in the summer of 2009). Her father, a fairly knowledgeable NFL fan, went as far as to say that almost every team in the league would have interest. While I wouldn’t go that far, I can think of four that would likely make a couple of phone calls.

So let’s go through them, in order of least to most likely:

Number 4: The Cincinnati Bengals Read More

Business Day One, Football , , ,

[Business Day One] I Was Ready For Some Football

No Comments

Between 8 p.m. on Saturday and 4 p.m. on Sunday, I watched more football (7 hours) than I slept (6 hours). Not a bad way to live, if you can manage it. I took in a rain-moistened Boston College-Notre Dame game at Alumni Stadium and then a sunny affair at Gillette. The good guys won each. BC, by a score of 17-0, and the Patriots, by a score of 20-10.

Both wins felt good, as wins tend to. But each was particularly important, and the exuberance of the sold out crowds reflected that. Boston College won their sixth straight against the Fighting Irish, becomming bowl eligible for the season. The Patriots are holding on to a share of first place in the AFC East (along with the Jets). A weekend win for each team isn’t the only similarity between the only football programs in town. Both the Eagles and the Pats are 6-3 now, despite early season question marks at the quarterback position. Both teams are playing without a defensive star (Brian Toal and Rodney Harrison, respectively). Both teams are making statements with their young ground games (Harris/Haden at BC, Green-Ellis for NE).

So how is each team going to do down the stretch? BC plays on the road at Florida State and at Wake Forest before coming home to close out the regular season against Maryland. I sincerely hope they win one of those games. The Pats have the Jets, Dolphins, Steelers, Seahawks, Raiders, Cardinals and one more against the Bills. There are two Will-Wins (Seattle, Oakland), two Should-Wins (Cardinals, Bills), and three that really could go either way. As of right now, I’d say that the odds of the Pats having a higher winning percentage than the Eagles is pretty good. But as is the case with football, anything could happen. New injuries to each team (BC lost their fullback, the Pats lost Adalius Thomas) will test them down the line. Regardless of what the rest of the season brings for each, I was thrilled I got to see two passionate fanbases watch their team take their sixth win.

Let’s go Patrigles.

Business Day One, Football , ,

[Business Day One] The Rough Stuff

No Comments

Only one good thing happened in my sports life this weekend – The Giants beat the Cowboys. Eli looked sharp and didn’t do anything silly, and the defensive line put pressure on to force interceptions. Beautiful win by one of the two best teams in football – reminded me of my youth in Jersey during the Phil Simms era.

Unfortunately for me, Boston College lost, the Patriots lost and my fantasy football team is about to lose it’s third straight. It was enough to drive me to yoga. I needed to center myself and control my delirious rage, and it was a lot of downward dogs and shavasanas. By the way, “shavasana” means corpse pose. I found it appropriate after I started feeling like BC’s season is dead.

The good is never worth the bad as a sports fan. Losses hurt more than wins sooth. Yet we always come back. Even those that say “to heck with it, I’m done with sports” are back at the beginning of the next season. All the moaning in Chicago this offseason is worth nothing, since the crowds will return to Wrigley as they always do. My deep lamentations over my beloved BC Eagles will wash away in time. That’s just how it is. No matter how rough the rough stuff is, we march through it in the hopes that it’ll end.

This is what I need to remind myself, and this is what you all need to remind yourself of. If you’re not ready for the brutality of investing yourself in something that you know will hurt you, you’re not ready to be a sports fan.

Business Day One, Football , , ,

[Business Day One] Shaken Faith

No Comments

The prevailing emotion in Boston today isn’t anguish. Aaron Boone was anguish for Boston. Brady-out-for-the-year was anguish. Last night, a good team lost to a great team. It happens all the time. Lowell was out, Varitek got old and Ortiz was playing with one arm. Pluckiness got them to game 7, but pluckiness alone can’t win it.

Personally, I thought the Gods of Sport would wield their divine power to drive both the Red Sox and Dodgers into the World Series and create the greatest storyline of the last ten years. But the Gods crapped the bed, and The Los Angeles Dodgers of Los Angeles wimpered and fell. I should’ve known that They would not do any favors for the Sox.

Now the world braces for the excitement of a Phillies/Rays World Series. I don’t like Philadelphia because the city is awful and I don’t like the Rays because I just don’t like the Rays. I have absolutely no interest in watching the World Series, and I plan on actively avoiding it or any references to it.

For 90% of the country, the countdown has begun until Pitchers and Catchers.

Baseball, Business Day One , , , , ,

[Business Day One] Lost Seasons And House Money

No Comments

I said Matt Cassel would be “fine” this season, and so far, he’s been just that. Not great. Not awful. Just fine. His stats so far support the assertion that’s he’s a perfectly average backup quarterback. Three touchdowns to four interceptions and a rating around 80. He’s playing exactly like a guy told specifically not to screw anything up. The trick is that each mounting loss will upset the merciless Boston sports media more and more, despite Cassel playing within his particular gameplan. Despite the fact that this loss could be hung on the cornerbacks as much as the quarterback, many fans (and the sports reporters that pander to them) don’t care so much about Deltha O’Neil and Ellis Hobbs as they do about the guy that replaced Tom Brady.

But I don’t think townsfolk with pitchforks are showing up at Gillette any time soon. Boston fans are an impatient bunch sometimes, but they’re not stupid. No one will demand Cassel be shackled and kept on the sidelines, since anyone who knows anything about Patriots football knows that no one else on roster can throw the ball. Backups-to-the-backup Matt Gutierrez and Kevin O’Connell aren’t the answer this season, and the drop-off from Brady to Cassel or anyone else will not be narrowed by any means. The fans know this, the media accepts this (though I’m sure they’ll write stories to the contrary when the Bills open up a three game lead in the division), and so this season has essentially become a “we’ll take anything” kind of season.

The Patriots are playing with house money now. With Brady down, everyone I know that owns a jersey with his name on it threw up their hands and lamented the soon-to-be 6-10 season. Anything above that is a pleasant surprise. I wouldn’t be surprised at all if I see a town of rah-rahs if 9-7 and a wild card berth becomes the reality in a few months. Thankfully for everyone, the Sox are still alive in the playoffs. That’ll make any grim twists of fate go down a bit easier.

Business Day One, Football , , ,

[Business Day One] Losers Aren’t Lovable

2 Comments

I hate the term “lovable loser.” There’s no such thing nowadays. As ticket prices go up, players garner larger salaries, and championship droughts extend even further, fans have less and less patience with basement dwelling teams.

Matt Millen, an unlovable loser.

See that guy? That’s Matt Millen, former GM of the Detroit Lions. No one loves him. Not even his family. He is the ultimate type of unloved: hated in his own city and irrelevant everywhere else. His buffoonery over the years (horrendous drafting, questionable contracts, upsetting mustache) has not caused Detroit diehards to suddenly starting hating the team, since that’s not how fandom works. But he caused them to hate him specifically. The team itself (that is, the collection of laundry that people root for), never gets the hatred. It’d be like hating a building for the people inside of it. When times get tough, fans target a single loser or a group of losers, and start hating on them in force. “Fire Such-And-Such” Websites pop up, message board posters fire off tirades about lazy players and season ticket holders show up to the stadiums with bags on their heads. And that’s what I find so interesting about fans of a consistently terrible team; they could hate every single player, coach and owner, but they’ll never hate the team.

I suppose, in that regard, the uniforms themselves are the lovable losers. The people wearing them aren’t. The owners that put them on the players aren’t. But the poor numbered shirt, forced to clothe the inept and poorly managed, are the things that fans have sympathy for. I don’t feel bad for 0-for-the-century Kosuke Fukodome, but I do take pity on his uniform. It’s so reviled it’s even a curse word in some places.

I find myself wondering what it would be like to be able to say “Aww, it’s alright. Those lovable scamps will get them next game.” That question comes from the same part of my mind that wonders what it would be like to shop at a general store or receive an ice delivery from a refridgerated truck. I kind of like being so passionate about something that I can hate someone that tries to harm it. I hate Hank Steinbrenner, for instance, and that makes me stronger. Before their Super Bowl win, I hated Eli Manning, Jeremy Shockey, the ghost of Tiki Barber and most of the offensive line, but it somehow made my love of the Giants more intense. I think the sports culture of our finest sports cities would be lessened if the tradition of the “there’s always next time” mentality came back. Hating on things is almost as fun as loving them.

Baseball, Business Day One , , , ,